Sorting out the advantage of THE True Aeroponics.

[Treeth]

Howdy hydro community...!

My first grow;
two 5 gallon bucket dwc's (canna), 940 watts of light, months long veg and flowering with a/c CO2... Is nearing completion. And I need to move up from DWC.

So,

I look to aero. But, "aero", the I-have-a-lawn-sprinkler-in-my-res-shit, is not really a step up from a maintained DWC. To see a noticeable increase in production, I have to move up... to true aeroponics... the grocery store high pressure nozzle shit.

My goal is to... yield as many grams per watt of light as possible... and i'm on to optimizing the feeding system.

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My idea is, True Aero-Garden, in typical, but large fashion - the res and aero chamber measuring around, 4x6. I plan to put up a frame and line this with a material yet to be dertimined... and bingo I pretty much have my res. Add a table top, and I have a 4x6 hydroponics pool.

inside this I install my, T-A-G, with the high pressure near fog 50 micron droplet spray-
perhaps 6-12 nozzles spraying, filling and fully feeding the roots hanging from the table.

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What is wrong about this plan? What do I need to know?


please save me the heartache of experimentation!



peace

 

[JimmyT]

I've heard a lot of bad things about fogponics. Snoop around on old posts about anything fog related and at one point or another you'll see that quite a few experienced growers will deter you from pursuing foggers. something about nutrients easily clogging the foggers. Good luck!

The "Harvest a pound every three weeks!" thread is a pretty sweet aeroponics/NFT grow journal (to some it's the new grow bible).

 

[QuentinQuark]

The foggers that people will tell you to stay away from are the ultrasonic foggers if i'm not mistaken.

Lots of decent high-pressure aero info here and here.

I think you might want to think about an external reservoir rather than making the bottom of your aero chamber your res. As far as lining, you can get shower lining or pond lining, should do the trick.

 

[Treeth]

Yeah im realizing exactly what I have to do to keep a res temperature,

as thats the most critical thing to do with aero. buying a water chiller perhaps doubles the initial investment though.

Now, I;m thinking about a vertical chamber,

built light outta whatever that foam insulation sheets are called, I figure those are strong enough to make a 4x4x2 foot box out of for a vertical sog table.

Moving the res out of the room means I have to pump the return water back out. So much shit to break or not work just quite right...

Is run to waste viable? I know canna has a line...

Thanks for getting me started quentin!

 

[Illegal Smile]

How exactly is any of this a step up from dwc? I've seen 7 ounces dry from single plants with no water pumps and no tubes. Just good water and good air and good nutes and good horticulture, and lots of airstones. Seems to me the advantage of aeroponics lies in the airbath roots are getting along with the water/nute bath. But you can replicate that with a simple dwc, just drain and leave the roots in the air awhile, they love it.

 

[Atomizer]

Now, I;m thinking about a vertical chamber

Thats a good plan, chamber depth helps distribute the mist using gravity and allows more vertical drop for the roots before they hit the floor.

Is run to waste viable? I know canna has a line...

Running to waste will get expensive on nutes. Its still a good idea to use a rtw nute for aero as the roots have a very limited time to grab what they need from the mist. With no media buffer and short 2-3 second misting pulses (without wetting the roots), theres no time for nutes to become available.
RTW nutes are formulated for this kind of a one shot deal. I use canna hydro (substra) vega/flores but any rtw nute would work just as well.

 

[QuentinQuark]

Yeah im realizing exactly what I have to do to keep a res temperature,

as thats the most critical thing to do with aero. buying a water chiller perhaps doubles the initial investment though.

Now, I;m thinking about a vertical chamber,

built light outta whatever that foam insulation sheets are called, I figure those are strong enough to make a 4x4x2 foot box out of for a vertical sog table.

Moving the res out of the room means I have to pump the return water back out. So much shit to break or not work just quite right...

Is run to waste viable? I know canna has a line...

Thanks for getting me started quentin!

If you skip the vertical and stay horizontal, you can have the water return to the res using gravity. Have your "table" above the height of the res, slope it a little, and use a bulkhead union on the low corner to let it drip back into the res.

 

[JimmyT]

How exactly is any of this a step up from dwc.

I've seen astounding growth rates with DWC. However, I've found that trying to do numerous plant sites with DWC can be a pain in the a$$ when it comes to root containment and amount of water and nutrients to be delivered. In a comparison of 50+ sites for Aero, I could easily use anything from 30-40 gallons of water to be dispersed within 4" PVC posts and back to the reservoir. DWC, I'd need a lot more water than that to accommodate 50+ plant sites...plus, that's a whole lot of roots too.

Just my 2 cents

 

[Bob Smith]

Atomizer, how come you don't recommend doing a D2W with HP aero? That's one of the main advantages I was looking for when I converted (for future systems, it'll be difficult to impossible with my current system).

And OP, how'd it ever work out for you?

 

[Atomizer]

I did say it was a good idea and it would get expensive if you use it with an unnecessarily hgh number of nozzles. Run to waste and pouring nutes down the drain are two different things

 

[PetFlora]

I am not using an accumulator so my runoff is based on ~3 second feed and ~ 2:30/2:45 pause. Yours should be much less as you can feed < one second and pause ~ 1:00/1:30. I run 2 red mist heads (0.7). In 24 hours I get ~ 0.5G runoff for 2 heads. I should have less runoff, but due to a number of factors my root mass is less than half of what they should be; twice the mass half the runoff? I dump mine on my flowering bushes/plants outdoors.

I only D2W during flower. At roughly 3 weeks I keep an eye on runoff ph/ppms. Once I see them take off I start dumping.


There's a Flow Rate Graph near the bottom of this page that I was unable to c/p http://www.cloudtops.com/misting_systems_misting_nozzles/mistingnozzles.php

 

[Atomizer]

If the nozzle spec is accurate (0.7gph), one nozzle should deliver 0.074oz (2.2ml) in 3 seconds.
Giving the nozzle spec the benefit of the doubt, your timing gives a total flow of 0.6gal entering the chamber over a 24hr period with 0.5gal running to waste. It doesn`t suggest you may be overdoing the mist a little?

 

[Bob Smith]

Well, I think we all know that his flow rates are nowhere near theoretical - I'm running an accumulator with four solenoids and my flowrates are nowhere near theoretical because of the length of tubing in my run.

That being said, the typical drain to waste ratio is about 4 to 1, so if he's spraying ~2.5 gallons a day (probably more realistic than a half gallon) his .5 gallon runoff is about right.

However, we can also all agree that he's misting too much (and at differing pressures/droplet sizes) to ever achieve "true" aero, regardless of his misting times.

 

[PetFlora]

If the nozzle spec is accurate (0.7gph), one nozzle should deliver 0.074oz (2.2ml) in 3 seconds.
Giving the nozzle spec the benefit of the doubt, your timing gives a total flow of 0.6gal entering the chamber over a 24hr period with 0.5gal running to waste. It doesn`t suggest you may be overdoing the mist a little?

I think your question is "Am I overwatering? Good question, and probably rhetorical. I will answer as best I can- maybe yes, maybe no.

In a perfect world, probably yes. However, due to the imprecision of my Sentinel timer at one second (plus it only has second intervals), I had little recourse as 2 seconds has been too short to date. Here's why...

Both plants are in the same 18G root pod. In my imperfect world, on Thanksgiving I came down with a bug that kicked my ass for 2 weeks, plus it got real cold here. Due to lack of attention, I lost 6 plants, 2 survived- barely. The roots on 12" girl are near normal; ~ 12" and pony tail like. The roots on the now ~18" girl are ~ 1/5 the size they should be.
Using trial and error, I have settled on 3 seconds with 2:35 pause; at 2:45 the large one wilts, but at 2:30 the smaller plant (larger root system) showed no signs of wilting.

My analysis is that the big girl doesn't have sufficient healthy roots/lateral bones yet to eat enough in a <2 second feeding to support her ample top side, which is quite bushy. But new roots are developing every day, so I should be able to test shorter feed time soon.


When I try ~ 2 seconds on again, what pause time would you suggest?

Thanks